The question all followers of the Karen Read murder trial have been waiting for was delivered on the 16th day of trial: Just when did Jennifer McCabe make the search for “Ho(w) long to die in cold”?
Defense attorney Alan Jackson presented cell phone record analysis that points to that search being made at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022 — hours before John O’Keefe’s body would be found on the frosted front lawn of 34 Fairview Road. McCabe countered that the analysis may show that, but she actually made that search a little after 6:20 a.m. at the behest of Read herself.
“Ms. McCabe, the reason you deleted that 2:27 a.m. call is that if it was found you searched for that, it would incriminate you,” Jackson said in a statement that was objected to.
But McCabe had a response, anyway: “I did not delete that search. I did not make that search at 2:27 a.m. I would not have left John O’Keefe outside to die in the cold because he is my friend, who I love.”
Prosecutor Adam Lally allowed her to further defend and explain the Google searches. She said she was searching for local sports coverage for an exciting game her daughter played hours before. She then left the same browser window open, she said, and must have used the same window to perform the new search, which is why the browser has a mark as being opened at 2:27 a.m. in the analysis.
McCabe, sitting for her third trial day in a row, wasn’t taking hostile questioning from the defense without a fight.
McCabe, who is on the stand for a third trial day in a row, is a principal figure in the conspiracy the defense alleges the Albert and McCabe families are involved in with local and state police to frame Read for the murder of John O’Keefe in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
The defense team first alleged the conspiracy more than a year ago, in April of 2023. Defense attorney Alan Jackson then filed a document in the case stating that “Ms. Read’s defense is predicated, in no small part, on a third-party culpability defense … [T]he defense has uncovered significant and reliable evidence that not only exculpates Ms. Read, but that inculpates Jennifer McCabe and Brian Albert.”
Since that time, McCabe testified, she and others the defense has indicated have been subject to a “social media witch hunt” that have scarred them.
Jackson had asked why McCabe visited the home of lead Massachusetts State Police investigator Trooper Michael Proctor in September of 2023. She answered the question with fury that Jackson objected to, but that Judge Beverly Cannone allowed to stand.
She said she visited not Trooper Proctor, but his wife, Elizabeth, who she said she had developed a friendship with over their shared prosecution online and in person.
“We are two mothers who have been viciously harassed,” McCabe said, adding they have been subjected to terrible letters and emails and also the focus of a rolling harassment parade outside their homes. Worse, she said, was that people “have taken a photo of my daughter and put semen on it and wrote ‘Property of’ a certain blogger I think the defense knows well.”
Background
Witness Jennifer McCabe is expected to retake the stand when the Karen Read murder trial resumes for its 16th day at 9 a.m.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer and her boyfriend of about two years when he died at age 46. Prosecutors say that after a night out drinking the pair argued and she killed him by backing her Lexus SUV into him, leaving him to die in the cold during a snowstorm.
McCabe was the only witness during the half-day Tuesday when she was under tense cross-examination following her direct testimony on Friday. There was no court on Monday.
Many expected questions, like a detailed examination of when McCabe’s “ho(w) long to die in cold” Google search was made, are likely to come out today. Defense attorneys in pre-trial hearings and court filings have argued the search was done hours before O’Keefe’s body was found on the lawn, which would implicate McCabe and others in an alleged scheme that framed Read for O’Keefe’s death.
At the end of Tuesday, prosecutor Adam Lally said that the next witnesses on his list are Laura Sullivan and Marietta Sullivan — two people who have not previously been mentioned in testimony — as well as ATF Agent Brian Higgins. Lally said that he didn’t expect to get through all of them on Wednesday.
This is a developing story.
